a part that was pretty explicit attack on mccarthy and saying you have really gone too far and you shouldn't dishonor an honorable man and that sort of language. his advisers say, you've got to get out. they tried to play it up to him like, feels like you're adding something on the at the last moment so stylistically it doesn't work but of course we all know it was his chance to say i'm not with the side site of my own party and he does not do it. that is the story of eisenhower. eventualleventuall y the presidency is different from the campaign but during the campaign he is really very clearly kowtowing to the right-wing within his own party. ..

>> next on booktv, tom angelique and the american revolution from assorted 18th century newspapers. mr. anderlecht contains newspapers from 1763 to 1783 examines reports ranging from the sugar of 18,642,000 concorde and bunker hill.

it's an hour and 15. >> it's an honor to be speaking at the old state house. thank you for coming. thank you to the tv and c-span for joining us here. about three weeks into the design of "reporting the revolutionary war," we realized we were on pace to producing 800 page from a two-inch thick volume and so we quickly cut corners and retrace our steps and decided to scale back and produce what is now a 400 page full-color book for you. similarly, i prepare to fight our presentation for this evening and decided to scale back back to him are manageable 45 minutes. so i'll start by saying that without these papers, there would have been no american revolution. newspapers are what fan the

flames of rebellion, sustained loyalty to the cause, provide critical correspondence during the war and ultimately aided in the outcome. historians know this very well. for 200 plus years, historians have referenced newspapers in the fitness of their analysis and interpretation. what this book does is invert the traditional history book, taking newspapers that have been in the footnotes and placing them at the forefront for general readers like you to enjoy full access and full-color newspapers from that. so you feel like you're reading it over the shoulder of george washington or paul revere. now, the process for putting this book together was quite a journey for me. i started out as an enthusiast,

then became a dirt and then became an educator or website called bagram.com and ultimately through this book. the story of how i first discovered historic newspapers have been about five years ago. my wife and i took her first family vacation to kalina, illinois, a cozy mississippi river town, were on the main strip they are rediscovered a rare book shop anywhere bookshop i found this nondescript container of old newspapers. picked one up and started reading it is april 21st 1865 "new york times." i was reading about abraham lincoln's assassination and reward for the capture of his conspirators. appleman triggered an intense passion and enthusiasm for history that i previously never had. for the next five years it became this journey of

collecting of newspapers because i'm tucked away in the midwest. i don't have convenient access to a lot of wonderful archives on the east coast. i don't have access to a lot of the original that are found in the libraries and institutions across the country. so i made it a point to try and collect fees because much like any other historical collectible , they are available for sale or purchase. if any of you have seen american pickers on the history channel, i would say it's much like that. i equate myself to american pickers, but more along the lines of historic documents, newspapers, where i am traversing the earth, trying to find and locate and take newspapers out of her bookshops and european book dealers and people who discovered them in attics and behind walls of old homes. so it's an exciting discovery process and newspapers

eventually grew and accumulated two with a became a significant collection, one of the most significant private collections of american revolution arab newspapers. in the story they told us fascinating, one that deserves to be shared with the general readership, which this book hopefully accomplishes. so tonight, what i want to do is walk you through what i consider to be the four buckets or discoveries i've made along this journey. i categorize those as one being the old media versus new, the journalism discoveries, history discoveries and then what i would call paper and preservation discoveries. so we'll start with old media versus new. quantity. today we are looking a

practically limitless of news. television, radio, internet, social media, twitter. you name it currently have access to seemingly unlimited quantity of new sources. back then, newspapers revealed a mass media of the day. the first newspaper printed on american soil successfully with the boston newsletter in 1704. it wasn't until 15 years later we had the second american newspaper printed, also in boston, the boston gazette. coincidentally, the next day the third newspapers started in philadelphia the american weekly mercury. circulation, the top 100 newspapers in america our circulation is approximately 200,000. at the time of the american revolution, the circulation is

approximately 600. that sounds awfully low, but keep in mind these newspapers are also not allowed in taverns in meeting houses and private homes, so most subscribership or circulation may be low, actual readership is quite significant. distribution. we have internet, telephone, tv and radio today. back then it was done primarily through horseback and ship, commonly called paca boats. the timeline here today news is instantaneous. its on demand. you can flip open your phone and have almost real-time news is your fingertips. 200 plus years ago, the news came up, the news came weekly. i'm sorry, the news came weekly said the time like we open a

newspaper and kinase anywhere from the d.o.t. several months old and a large part of that list the amount of transit time that had to go into how far the news traveled to reach the printer. for instance, you might have news across the atlantic in which the transatlantic voyage was four to eight weeks. the length of these newspapers here today we've newspapers roughly 20 to 30 pages, multiple sections. fact then, the average is four pages long. picture one large sheet of paper. that one large sheet of paper on one side were pages 194 so the front and back page of the newspaper folded in half and on the inside id. pages two and three. so what we think of today, wait a second, that track, the front page and four-page retyped set

earlier in the week, whereas the interior pages, pages two and three were typeset later in the week or more closer to the actual publication date. so what we associate us front page cover story news is typically found on page two or three, not on page one in four rehab more evergreen type of content, foreign news, essays, advertising and such. the frequency we talked about how today we have the daily instant news. back then you had weekly. but today we have left and right leaning media. it is very important to me that this book include both days of patriots and loyalists as well as american and british newspapers. this takes us to the journalism discoveries. today, newspapers have paid

professional staffs of reporters and editors. back then they didn't have professional paid staff. the number one news source was private correspondence. so here we have an early 1774 pennsylvania newspaper that has an article that starts off with letters from boston complained the taste of their fish being altered number which would suggest a humorous take on the boston tea party. what you'll find most commonly is the extract of a letter to lead into the article said today. you also note there weren't headlines. headlines were very common in the 18th century, so most articles that bad belief that the extract of a letter or a

dateline. another primary news source with the exchange system or other newspapers. so once they print their weekly edition, based send issues to the other colonial printers who in turn reprint extracts from that addition and around, often under a data line. this is also a boston gazette issue from 1766. so you do chang or 60 of mine tells me this news came from new york and quite rightly the new york newspaper. after action reports are primary source of news once the war begins. so after action reports that when the commanding officer would read a summary of the events of the military engagement and some not at the chain. often an america that would be the president of congress. you share that report with the local newspaper printer.

i'm not newspaper printer would send additions up and down and you would see the after action report appear in multiple newspapers up and down the colonies. so here we have the junior 23rd 1777 of the carnal journal that includes george washington's own account of the battle of trenton and crossing of the delaware. you can see at the top the dateline baltimore come over congress is meeting at the time. i said earlier you really don't see headlines in the 18th century newspapers. was a dateline is an extract of the letter from. here's april 21st 1775 issue of the new hampshire gazette. extraordinary for its content and that it reports the breaking news of the battle of lexington and concorde, but also historically significant and forced her to. the fact that the left column is dedicated to the content of lexington and concorde.

more importantly is a centered headline, but he news, which surely caught the attention of columnists reading this particular newspaper. more so is the point i made earlier about breaking domestic news is typically found in pages three. this is domestic raging news on page one. so another significant journalism piece to catch the attention. illustrations are also something you don't be newspapers. reduce the badness in the name place a rare we have paul revere's join or die but the serpent and the dragon. you also see them in advertisements. for instance, the advertisement on the right is for a carry trade service.

there was however one illustration any current event. only one and that is the battle of bunker hill, the virginia gazette of august 26, 1775, printed in the middle column, an eyewitness account of the battle of bunker hill. the account contains such vivid details of the actual battlefield for the entrenchment that the publishers of this gives that put together a rudimentary illustration using just the common type was behind the print shop. this is what it looks like. now, periodicals coming from great written like alumni magazine, gentleman's magazine committees are monthly periodicals. you tend to see maps and illustrations they matter, but not in newspapers. you would think after this

addition another colonial newspapers would see this and perhaps take similar processes for developing similar types of illustrations. we don't. my guess is logistically timeless on their side and they couldn't do this repeatedly, so this is the only known illustration to depict the current event in a newspaper during the entire revolutionary war. this is also the age of enlightenment. we've journalism as entertainment and as educating. on the on the left is the new jersey cassette or the right two columns are dedicated to reestablishment of the continental army. it details the specs of the infantry, artillery, calgary. on the left of the column dedicated to mathematical theory on the right is the freeman's journal printed in philadelphia for the entire front page is dedicated to news of the surrender and poetry.

advertising is also something that struck me in the sense that there's a lot of advertisements for runaway slaves, indentured servants for sale or deserted soldiers. david mccullough is an advocate for primary sources and the general public and students reading primary sources. what he says is these deserted soldier advertisements in newspapers or ruby get a lot of information about what the uniforms look like because they are describing these soldiers have deserted. another interesting advertisement that struck me was finished june or 20, 1776 issue of the pennsylvania legislature. here we have 10 days after the first publication of thomas paine's common sense.

what was interesting to me about this addition is that in the same newspaper is another advertisement for a new edition of common sense, which suggests just how quickly this pamphlet was moving. which brings me to the history discoveries. no taxation without representation. that argument springs to life in newspapers. in particular, to make time, 1764 the pennsylvania gazette. on page two is one paragraph it details the forthcoming sugar act. in that article, and says the scheme of taxation previously debated in the parliament whether they had the power to lay such a tax on colonies, which had a representative and determined the affirmative. what's also interesting is that this is very good but firsthand for the forthcoming stamp act that we know so well.

besides this, and internal tax was cut off and you can see that, but he says an internal tax is forthcoming, a stamp duty. violence and knobs and rice are also something that struck me because of the sheer magnitude of the violence reported in the newspapers of the day. in particular supplement to the boston newsletter on september 5, 1765. extraordinary for multiple reasons. on the front page of this two-page issue is details of destruction of lieutenant governor thomas hutchison's home, the lieutenant governor of boston. on page two, from newport, rhode island, we read similar home destruction of loyalists and stamp masters. so here it reads for three days

by practical to do this. day one, assemble cows come and make effigies in the hated loyalists. currie the effigies and hoist effigies 15 feet high. make a fire and burn those effigies to ashes. choose deputies at the time to make many turns to take these understand that. day two in the evening, gather a crowd to march the house of david lewis number one. shutters and ask him break to pieces, damaged partitions and ruined furniture. terry's house to pieces, demolishes furniture and seller. march to the home of the snap master, threaten as tom if he doesn't resign. we see the promise of resignation from a return to the first two homes to continue the destruction on the following morning, g3, listen to the public resignation and wait for loyalists who sailed to england and saw the real estate.

so we have such violence reported in the newspapers and this is in a boston newspaper, so surely bostonians were probably pleased to see what they had done previously with catching on in the other colonies on this had the desired effect they very much wanted. if forced to stamp masters to resign, which prevented enforcement of the hated stamp act. so what you see in the newspapers after this is all up and down the colonies, the other towns taking more courses to prevent the enforcement of the stamp act. along similar lines with the fact that benjamin franklin was one of those targeted hated colonists whose home came this close to being destroyed by a

mob of teachers because brent franklin shows sentiments of moderation in compliance with the stamp act. he appointed a friend of his to be a stamp master and the sentiments of complaints of moderation come through in the newspapers. so for instance, benjamin franklin printed the pennsylvania gazette 17292 to 1748. for the next 16 years until 1768, he remained a business partner, were on the back of every pennsylvania did not -- so while he wasn't at the in the daily printing business, it still carried his name in that pennsylvania gazette was one of the first to print the full text of the stamp act. the pennsylvania gazette, just a few weeks later was also advertising for franklins poor richard's almanac, which in the

1766 edition, they were promoting the full text of the stamp act, which i'll call and it familiar with because it's going to affect you all. so they're newspaper accounts you start to see sentiments of moderation in compliance. also the boston tea party. this is a december 21st 1773 printed in salem massachusetts. here we have one of the most popular eyewitness accounts of the boston tea party theater is written written by an impartial observer, very common for certain items. even if only to pad the being destroyed afford one of the ships and how the columnists and rebels quickly that padlock source remained winless for anything but the destruction. you also learn that an account of one of the rebel colonists pocketing some of that and

quickly being seized by other participants and pummeled. we also learned the boston tea party was not universally celebrated. the february 1774 issue of, we read the minutes from marshfield, massachusetts at the meeting were they label the boston tea party illegal, unjust and dangerous. the shot heard round the world. that came very close to happening on multiple occasions weeks and months prior to april 19, 1775. case in particular covers for is how close we came to happening for spire in new hampshire. also along paul revere lines, i went to an multiple revolutionary guys. one case in particular was his right to philadelphia and back

to share the south oak results to the intolerable acts, which feared for its accounts by mr. paul revere. another interesting tidbit was printing of the declaration of independence, a rival of the declaration of independence on august 10, 1776 and 19. three days later the london chronicle prints 18th century equivalent that we have advice received at the congress resolved the fourth of july and have declared against great britain. two issues later, the text of the declaration. it is a generic 23rd, 1777 issue i mentioned earlier printed in boston of george washington crossing the delaware bruce chadwick who contributed the essay on the battles of trenton and princeton called up

the phrase washington used that the haitians surrendered because they knew they were about to be cut to pieces and being somewhat harsh language to come from the future president. we also read another addition is a first about john paul jones, the first american naval hero. he was also an american pirate to the british. during the account you read what is msn fashion report. paula jones, who stressed in a short jacket among trousers swung about toronto's medal in a in his hand. john paul jones, his mortal words i have not begun to fight and said he likely didn't say that what he probably said is more closely printed in the

newspapers of the day. in this case, and even the advertiser that caused him a saint i may think, but i'll be if i stood. saratoga, the turning point of more. i was struck at the pennsylvania ledger early 1778 that printed the objections raised to the terms of surrender. so early 1778, the pennsylvania ledger is in philadelphia. this happens to be under headline you don't see here for mobile papers. but here we have congress, continental congress asking for some of the surrendered items are. so how come the number of muskets as leslie mann of the prisoners and all the muskets are unfit for service? how come the number bayonets be

so greatly inferior to that of the musket? what also struck me is benedict arnold industries and helped revitalize the lingering war. dennis and conrad, who wrote the contextual assay for benedict arnold did not section in the book points to the nathaniel greene papers in which he added that all the correspondents whose research, he only found one of cents per nathaniel greene pointed to god, intervening in the revolutionary war and the rooster in the treason uncovering a benedict arnold. nathaniel greene as suggested in this report feels god has intervened in the american revolutionary war and helped the americans uncovered a treasonous five. you also see ubiquity after he

becomes hated on arnold, during the interview, the columnist or to point fingers and say we saw over your doing this vicious and say circe arnold everywhere. in this case, arnold was having dinner at a close friend and plunder the house after dinner and set it afire. your town, diane depew, who is a national public service veteran contributed the essay for the yorktown campaign and in may we learn a celebrity intervention, but the commander who is delayed in sending reinforcements to cornwallis at yorktown partially was due to the fact that clanton was entertaining a celebrity in new york. that celebrity, king george the third son, prince william henry.

diane also comments on a bit of irony. october 9th team, day of the surrender, the day that greece and clinton sailed from new york to yorktown to provide the reinforcements. it just so happened that canada is commanded by cornwallis' younger brother. which then brings me to the last bucket of discovery. so what i would call paper and preservation discoveries. prior to 1870, before transition to what pope, newspapers are printed on rockland stock, paper made primarily off the backs of the colonists, what people wore his clothes. these bags were oiled and poked him ultimately sifted into the sheets of paper and the durability of the paper plays a significant role in the

preservation in that today we can find 250 open newspapers in better position than last week's "boston globe," which is probably yellowing impartial. thanks to the paper on which they are printed and thanks to the institution for long-term storage, we have these printed accounts of what transpired during the american revolution. what i tend to do is look for newspapers others might consider trash that are extremely beat up, households, lived a long life enter fire and flood and warner are torn and tattered a little bit. i partnered with one of the top conservators out of d.c. who is the head of conservation at a major museum to restore these newspapers as close to the original as possible.

the hole at the bottom is completely filled. scotch tape has been used can be removed and can be preserved once again. so at the beginning of the book, i point out that there are no photographs of the american revolution. we have photographs of the civil war in every major war thereafter, but not the american revolution. but there's a large part in making the american revolution unreal to some people could read beautiful oil paintings, caricatures and cartoonish engravings depicting events of the revolution created years after the war ended, so they tend to be unrealistic. newspapers are very timely. they printed vivid descriptions of battlefield accounts in what has transpired throughout the

whole course of the war. so very much so these newspapers are photographs of the war. they help make the american revolution real to me and my goal with this book was the newspapers help make the american revolution real for others. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible] -- i want to share qnx does before introduced the panel. on the east i began on the balconies for the declaration of independence with the citizens of boston a few weeks after his past on july 4th. so it took a little while to get up to boston from philadelphia, but they got here and abigail adams is in the crowd in the

intersection and wrote to her husband, john and said it was crazy. after the declaration was read, everything british was ripped down and burned in the middle immediately after, including the unicorn have refined the east façade in 1881. but immediately one of the first two things ripped off assembles the british authority were burned. it was a little rambunctious in boston. it continued to be. before that in 1770 in march 5th, happened just outside the intersection as well, something we're all familiar with common sense thing that bob allison contributed in the book as well as his own book. but another rambunctious event in the city of boston. so just right outside this

building itself. now are going to turn to a panel discussion, which is in the fashion of question-and-answer session. the mike in the middle of the aisle is for you to step up to, ask your questions to the panel. right now, i will introduce you to the panelists. beginning with bob allison come he's the chair of the history department at suffolk university, just on the street. he teaches at the harvard extension school and suffered several books on the american revolution, most recently at 2011 book entitled the american revolution, a concise history. he's the vice president of massachusetts, trustee of the uss constitution museum, also on the freedom trail into the commonwealth museum in boston. he also serves the bostonian society and the old statehouse is a member of our board's

advisory committee. so what that, bob allison. [applause] next we'll move to john bell. john bell is the curator of the blog boston 1775 come a site dedicated to the history, analysis and unabashed concept of the american revolution in new england. he recently completed a study during the siege of boston for the national park service. it's also good about doing england's youth during the resolution, count watchman at the boston massacre, the wave of bankruptcies in 176500 tons friday pope may celebration. that was a crazy event annually. he has lectured in many historical site, including this one. bob -- i'm sorry, john bell. [applause] and todd train to come among the

nations leading authorities on 18th century newspapers as he could no doubt tell. he's still one of the most significant collections of americans from pollution during the earliest printed reports of practically every major event in battle from 1763 to 1783. todd is curator publisher of before history.com, an online museum and educational archive of significant newspapers dating back to the 16th century. todd andrlik. [applause] so will open up the question-and-answer with our panel. >> let me just say that todd has done something extraordinary with this book. i didn't know anything about -- i got a call a couple years ago from a guy who collects newspapers and he wanted to do a book. i said that's great.

and what he's done in this book is taken these newspapers, these primary sources and publish them. that in itself isn't unique. those of us fortunate enough to live in bath and other places of great research libraries that we can go to the boston public library got a lot of newspapers are the american antiquarian society. todd has taken them and put them in a book, but then with any dissenting something more fantastic, to assemble just about every scholar and the american revolution and people who have a great detailed knowledge of a particular event or place that is the folks who are the park service curators that are interpreters at different sites and other sites, or people who know boston in 1775. and there were no spots to be for the revolution better than john bell. all around the country it is todd's, both his passion, enthusiasm and seemingly midwestern anything that's called us and he seemed okay and contributing c. you can book if

you're a teacher or college professor teaching the american revolution in here you have probably the best account of the battle of utah springs deliver fine for any other event in the revolution. so this is the resource for teaching the american revolution. i congratulate todd for putting it together. >> i'm not a degreed historian. i play one on tv. but it is important to me that the newspapers be historically supported i.t. experts, the authorities on the subject matter. so i drafted 37 top historians to bridge the centuries and hold the hands of the general readers so that when they're trying to consume 18th century media, which isn't always the easiest thing for us today, they have the experts who can kind of point out certain things that

they should be noticing and keep in mind these gross then underwent propaganda tools of the area. so they come up occasional errors and omissions and inaccuracies that the contributors to the book, with the data served as referees. so they were calling fouls on the errors and omissions in pointing it out for the modern readers. so these documents alone can be dangerous. but when they are contextualized by experts, very beautiful thing. >> the newspapers at a time when some lame attempt to bring order to the events by showing the viewer decide that the newspapers supported. todd mentioned the rights of boston before the war, for instance, in newspapers would occasionally report on this, but also sort of downplaying the destruction or say that device had been done by sailors and boys, people who are not

respectable citizens of the town. but those newspaper sources are still very important because they say with the other people in massachusetts learned about these events. >> any questions? yet. >> so you're describing the media this page are they men or loyalists leading the way we have left lane in right-thinking media. i am wondering if he found in any of your research, anything that could resemble opinion pieces or columns the way we know today or if that is something introduced much later and do you know when? >> usually page one of the newspapers contained serialized essays that would go on sometimes for multiple issues, where they would provide one perspective of a certain

argument and then you would sometimes receive the counter arguments immediately following. >> i would say in fact that everything was opinion, that a lot of the time there was not really the sense of an impartial journalism yet. so when you read about an event computers usually been presented from the point of view of a one-sided supported by the newspaper. todd mentioned earlier the tea party account written by an impartial observer. well, he or she separately impartial. it is very much present team the people who just destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property as being very respectful of private property and putting back at lock and making sure that no tea was stolen for a selfish reason.

so the value of impartiality was fair, but it receives by both sides for their own side because they viewed themselves as in the ones who at the fair, complete view of events and the other side is the ending of the fax. >> msnbc and fox news are models of impartiality compared to the revolutionary. >> he still had a newspaper title that attempted to remain mutual. the boston evening globe. >> a scottish immigrant named john may try to be impartial at the beginning. he tried to publish articles on both sides. didn't work. he eventually became the strongest supporter of the royal government and was driven out of town. >> on the other side of that, now we have so many different sources of media that we can kind of fact check.

how often was what was presented in this newspaper drastic exaggerations or outright lies in order to gain support virtue turn people directly to one side or the other? >> while a man, you're definitely finding exaggerations, whether it is drastic or not. but i was interested in finding was a lot of newspaper accounts came with disclaimers. the printers still very much valued reliable sources and the source was questionable, they would frequently printout with the article, some sort of disclaimer. >> i remember there is a letter that was published after the battle of lexington and concorde that talked about the burger soldiers coming to the personage in lexington and rampaging through and killing the barnyard animal. that never happened. there's a letter about the battle of bunker hill this is

general howe, as soon as soldiers reached charlestown, some of them try to desert and ran away and how had two of them strung up immediately on a tree. that didn't happen neither. they were definitely propaganda pieces. they provide their readers with what they felt was accurate information. this is accurate. at one point some of the letters from john adams and benjamin harrison the continental congress delegate% up to boston from philadelphia. they were property is on your ear who is captured. the british got a hold of the documents in the published and paid the john adams letters were just so good about the other continental congress if he did not change anything anything in

them. but in the harrison letter committee changed it to look as if george washington was having an affair with a mate and a tavern. so yes, both sides were using propaganda within the newspapers. >> interestingly, in the middle of the war he stumbled upon a few london chronicle is that reports that george washington had died in battle. normally, these were also kind of the rumor hearsay and their way of adding disclaimer ways to print the more gossipy news from the less credible sources also at the back of the newspaper. so the london chronicle was in a page newspaper and that this is most commonly found on page eight. >> these publishers are also in competition with each other, so they will correct challenge. they knew each other personally i mostly read these newspapers and kind of the biggest billing in new york. each side isn't going to attack the other one personally, which i guess is the fact checking.

i was just reminded by thomas jefferson said. he could divide the newspaper into four sections. first district on the second half truth, partial and lies eighth at the fourth section would be the longest. >> there was a moment in the late 1760s when it was so upset if something better have been published in the boston gazette he came to the gazette and club john gill, one of the printers over the head. so it got personal. >> keep in mind a lot of these news accounts are coming from private correspondence and eyewitnesses and the after action reports of commanding officers. so what i was also interested in learning or contextual essays is how shockingly accurate a lot of these were. for one of the more kind of common war propaganda tactics was to inflate and magnified or not any loss.

>> i had a question along the same lines as an organized effort and propaganda, leading up to the war. it occurs to me supplications we read about certain individuals made in a print shops, the adams quote you had on your blog this morning. they propaganda in the newspapers and on the other side of that, whose financing some of these things? the printers are making money from newspapers, but then we have things like broad sides. i'm always curious about who is spending. with a super pac for the pastry aside as financing certain broadsides? eno, who is paying the piper and that. >> okay, i'll start with the question of needing that newspaper offices. this was in 1775 accorded a

little bit of john adams in 1769, in his diary where he spends a sunday evening at the office printshop i'm aware they create the boston gazette and single ads is fair and william davis and possibly james otis and they were cooking up things for the next day's newspaper. essays, but john adams called occurrences. indict in fact might be a reference, a concerted effort to boston pitcher x or waves at the time they called themselves to tell other newspapers in tongues but it is like to live in boston under the occupation of the british irony from 1768 to 1770. do you send out general occurrences or transactions every week, saying this horrible thing happened this week and a soldier was bad this week and here's what's happening with the soldiers on trial.

those were not published in the boston papers because of course everybody in boston was supposed to know already. those% to new york and from the new york papers, they resent all of them democrats the chitosan eventually reprinted in boston. so that was an example of the very definite effort about one side of the political divide to use the power of the press to bring the sympathy of the entire seaboard for boston. you also talk about who financed that. well, it looks like william cooper, the boston town clerk was involved in writing some of those reports. single adams has been paid to massachusetts house because he was a clerk of the house. so he was earning a salary sub pop petition, rather rare at that time. so went away, the governments

were supporting the time that went into writing those reports. there is an article, and historian called oliver dickerson a number of decades ago about the control of the boston press during the prerevolutionary. he found in british government archives, the letter from the printers of the boston post void basically saying, look, you are spending all your money. it was a letter to the customs office. you're sending all your might the boston chronicle and its now gone out of business, so why don't you support this? what you give us a stationary contract you had to boston chronicle printers? why does she buy her papers that we will support -- it was simplistic, we will support your side of the dispute. so again, it was another arm of the government supporting this newspaper.

i believe when ezekiel russell sponsored or put out a magazine called the boston sensor, which resented the loyalists point of view, i believe he was supported to some of the rich loyalists and towns through either subsidies for everybody agreed, yes, we'll buy subscriptions for this magazine that will allow somebody to boston to show our side of the dispute. so i hope that answers the question. >> in all the discussion about the new sources, we get the impression we think of a newspaper today in terms of not only publication house, that this network of professional syndicates and reporters and things like that. i have the impression from what you say you were talking during the time. just a printers who are relying

strictly on whatever sources they can't, whether it be government documents that come in her letters are somebody who says i was laid, i continue would have been. is that the correct sense? >> yeah, a lot of the first colonial newspapers were also printed a postmasters because they had access to the number one new services, the private correspondence. so you do see that a lot. >> that's pretty much the case. franklin was one of the most successful printers in the country and he became the deputy postmaster. this is something that then carries over to the early republic when newspapers could travel free through the mails because it was an interest in the part of the united states government to have information flowing freely so you things picked up. there during the debate over ratifying the constitution. in fact, massachusetts was very resisted to the new constitution

the supporters in massachusetts have been to control the mails in one of the most influential document as the opposition of the minority to the pennsylvania ratification and the circulated come except in massachusetts. the post office hold it up because they didn't want this entering into the political discourse before massachusetts had voted. controlling the post office and the flow of news is one of the essential things here in this book really helps us see the connections between this, the connection between the free-flowing information, which is somewhat different from the free flow of information today. >> i think figure writing the observation that besides the printers, there weren't other people employed at these newspapers. there might be gentlemen at the adams cousins coming once or twice a week to make sure the essays looked good, but there were no reporters. there were no editors as such.

there's one moment in september 1774, when the note the printer, isaiah thomas was outside the printshop at the scene of an event from something called the powder alarm in cambridge. we know that not because he came back inside i filed an eyewitness report. now, we know that only because he customs official who is chased by this crowd in cambridge said of his sister thomas who got them upset at me. and so the whole notion of journalism is evolving at the time. i think in the early republic is the first time i am seeing people on the newspapers who haven't been trained as printers. i guess maybe joseph greenleaf, he's a magistrate a justice of

the piece from rural massachusetts. he comes in to boston shortly before the revolution and as a partner with isaiah thomas. but until that point, the magazines, newspapers, everything was really the enterprise of a printer, a man's or in a few cases women have gotten their fingers dirty, putting types and lines and actually work in those prices. it wasn't until the next generation that we began to get this other -- these other professions of the reporter for the newspaper publisher county doesn't get his hands dirty, because although many. >> just thinking about differences and similarities between newspapers then and now. today we have the safety of impartiality of the one in professional journalists who have a juicer quotes about the tasteful thing. but the fundamental purpose of a

newspaper in 1775 and today is pretty much the same. it's a moneymaking enterprise. no one is going to pay for the church bulletin, but you want someone to buy your newspaper and one way you do that if that requires hiring the staff, then you do that. if it is a one-man operation you're turning up, that's how you do it. i think we may have evolution about the price serving some higher purpose and there's nothing wrong with the purpose of making money, so i'll just leave it. remind you to buy books -- [laughter] >> when i say it's a printer, the printer would probably have the advantage of the labor of printers wife, printers children, apprentices, maybe a couple. it was may 1%, but it was in a household operation. >> uses several women printing during the american revolution and a lot of times they become

printer because a husband or brother passes away and they resume kind of the operation of the printshop. >> printer at the boston newsletter, which is the only newspaper that keeps going inside boston during the siege. so you can imagine the patriot army ranged outside of boston and the food shortages. that was being kept afloat by margaret draper, who is the widow of the previous printer. spinnaker benjamin franklin and printers he trained with a stick over the price. in fact, women remained fairly dominant in typesetting in one of the field still open to women throughout the 19th century. >> one of the things i always observe is that when we read his reap prior to our lives, we always do so with knowledge of

what occurred if the work took place, et cetera. if he talked to some some of the alive during world war ii, before pearl harbor we didn't know if the united states would enter or not. so you can be speaking with an older person perspective that she wouldn't have on your own. for what your saying about the newspapers, these newspapers wouldn't have this sort of did, but it is curious out for the lead article is about the battles, cider, that insular articles in the current town meeting events, et cetera, how this may eliminate your understanding of event we read about in history today. >> that's actually my favorite assignments to have students find a newspaper for many. and read through to see what was the news. it's usually not the front page article, but the smaller stories or ads that are really eliminating. i always find it reassuring to read newspapers from 100 years

ago, 50 years ago, 200 years ago. .. you get this different perspective of the not knowing everything that has happened since. >> you don't even know it's going to happen the next week, and you can see that some people don't care. they just want to sell you their car or whatever. it's in a wonderful way reading

a full newspaper of immersing yourself in the life of a particular moment. >> sometimes the production goes on throughout the course of hours of advertisements do help provide much context with that regard. one of the ads it struck me was in 1776 the pennsylvania gazette where the middle column you have under an annapolis dateline, news of the very first sons of liberty meeting taking place in the maryland capital. directly adjacent to that as an advertisement for the sale of an indentured servant so you have hear this unique kind of juxtaposition with the news of the sons of liberty, the organization established to fight the tyranny and the potential enslavement of the colonists, alongside an advertisement for the sale of indentured servants. you get a lot of that in the book it away because the newspapers are presented in a fashion where you are allowed to

kind of wander and discover and become your own historian where you can find other interesting ted it's a long separate lines of the featured news of the day. >> because the newspapers were so short he would have everything compressed on the same page. you would have a runaway slave advertisement next to an advertisement for the latest imported china, next to some essay about the political thing next to -- they could get really personal and some of these newspaper ads and bantering back and forth about something. obviously was very important back then. >> another thing that maybe we don't care as much about his nasty gossip today. [laughter] we will talk afterwards. >> some of these exchanges, they are very reminiscent of on line exchanges where you have two

people, anonymous sniping at each other for weeks on end. one newspaper and then the opposing newspaper three days later, and so it always strikes me is so similar that i think okay these days we think the anonymity allows this. it's the people who answer so quickly because they are not thinking. back then they had three days to think and they knew exactly who the other guy was because it was a town of 15,000 they still decided okay, i don't like his politics so i'm going to talk about his illegitimate child. [laughter] >> please use the microphone. >> it was so expensive and then what would be the most prized possession in your collections regarding up any feed that you may have paid?

and then what are you hoping to acquire? what is the treasure that you don't have in your collection at this time? >> well, newspapers range in value based on a number of factors, condition, timeliness of the news, the milestone that is being covered in that particular issue whether it's an american issue or a british issue, so a4a be a year's. the range anywhere from you know, tens of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on all those criteria. the kind of most coveted newspaper i would think to many, although that is subjective, it is the very first american printing in a newspaper of the declaration of independence which is the july 6, 1776 issue of the pennsylvania evening post. so that is obviously very

desirable. >> do you want it? [laughter] be the american revolution center, which is going to be building the first national museum for the american revolution, it's one of their prized artifacts. >> you talked about about all the different sources and i just want to know, where did they get a lot of these sources? were they being sent in and were they just rifling through people's mail cracks how did they get these documents that were put into the newspapers? >> i guess when we talk about an extract from a letter from a gentleman, these were private letters but the gentleman had been probably gone to the newspaper or to a tavern to share the news from his covenant group or whatever with the other businesspeople in the town. so anyway, it wasn't that they were rifling through the mail in

except in the case of -- where they were capturing the mail. there are other examples of data more time but it was more the gentleman was sharing the news he had which of course made him more important, with the printer and that leads to some interesting results. we have more details about the battle of lexington in the pennsylvania press than necessarily in the massachusetts press because gentleman or sending off details that they knew about and there was no pressure to keep some of these detailed secret because there was a war on. so the pennsylvania press talked about paul revere and the message. >> i have the opportunity to interview on video several of the contributors to the book, and i asked one of them that

same question. dennis conrad, and he pointed to a manuscript letter that he had come across where in the margin, it said print this, print this, print this as to suggest exactly what the author of that letter wanted to be printed in the newspaper. >> i was just wondering since the topic of your collection came up, how your collection of silence do good letters, do you have all the originals on file or -- >> those would be very desirable but those are earlier, and outside of my specialty or of my focus. >> i thought they said as early as as the 16th century. >> those are not as in depth or not in the quantity that the american revolution and era.

>> does everyone know the silence do good books? do you want to reveal the secret? >> benjamin franklin, when he was an apprentice and his brother james frank lands printing press in boston, just up the street, apparently another relationship between the brothers was not strong in the other brother didn't want benjamin to really have a role beyond the apprenticeship and benjamin was an up-and-coming writer in contributed some pieces that he wrote and slid under the door to the print shop at night under the pseudonym silence do good. when his brother discovered those, very much fell in love with the writing and printed them under the pen name silence do good. >> this was during the smallpox m. at the -- epidemic and the

foremost -- and james franklin started the current as a way of attacking the whole idea of inoculation and he pointed out they were the same people who wanted us to execute quakers and they wanted us to hang which is and now they wanted to inject himself with smallpox as a testimony of madmen and fools. so the newspaper is attacking particularly cotton mather calling him a baboon and other things you wouldn't find in newspaper today. [laughter] and under this torrent of abuse, one of mather's daughters died and he preaches a sermon at her funeral on the dignity of silence under attack. this was mather's most recent publication. is most famous publication was essays do good or bonafay shows. i think everyone reading the newspaper new silence do good meant cotton mather and in fact

in the first of the letter silence do good describes herself, the middle-aged widow of a clergyman as being a great lover of her country and clergyman and pointing out the faults of others and other characteristics i think people knew that mather was the target. franklin was a brilliant writer and a brilliant satirist and at the age of 16 was showing his great tendency. something incidentally which did not sit with his brother. i don't know if any of you have a smarter younger brother. some of us may be the smarter younger brother so we can now see this from both sides. i look forward to the next edition of do good letters and 1720 stuff after the success of reporting the revolutionary war. >> its all right i would like to backtrack just one moment and ask for your commentary on the

role of local newspapers during the battle of lexington concorde or shortly thereafter and you briefly mention how the boston newsletters was one of the only newspapers to continue its coverage of that. what very much was the atmosphere like for the printers on the verge of war and just after the war starts? >> well they had printers often and in a couple of the port towns to the north, salem, and when the war started, i think there were leaks from the british government that they were telling general gates, the royal governor, to start cracking down and the printers, the most radical printers mr. eads of that partnership and isaiah thomas, got their presses out boston just a few days in

early april of 1775 in eads's knock out around the same time. isaiah thomas knock out on the day the battle, crossing the with dr. joseph warren. so they were outside of boston as it began so they quickly set out -- set up their presses in watertown and worcester in order to serve the patriot cause and another set of printers came down from salem and rename their newspaper the independent chronicle to again support the patriot cause. one of the ways, they printed reports for the government, talking about how awful this british attack on concord had been and how they had fired without provocation on the soldiers or these farmers lined up in lexington and how they

attacked houses on the afternoon of that day. a copy of the newspaper with this report and this version of the battle of lexington and concord, the provincial congress commissioned a ship drum salem to carry this across to london and the ship sailed in malice which meant it didn't have any cargo and didn't stop you have any cargo. the entire voyage was being paid for by the patriot government in order to get their version of what was happening to london first. and it worked because general gates had sent out a slow boat that went to new york and across to london and so the london government, and you can see this in the london chronicles that todd has in the book, is waiting and waiting for the official report, the report they think is

more credible while the entire capital talking about what the massachusetts government has said. overtime, there is a bit -- it's tough for some of these printers because it's wartime and at one point isaiah thomas and his apprentices are actually talking about the raglan used to make the paper. the printers would ask subscribers to bring in your old rags in order to send it to the paper makers to be recycled into paper. they would have these piles of old rags and at one point he is sleeping on these piles because they didn't have beds during the war. so, meanwhile, you talk about inside boston on the other side, most of the printers shutdown and only margaret draper and her journeyman john howe kept the boston newsletter running and the pas